Gerd Müller scored an incredible 68 goals in 62 matches in a Germany shirt. A record that still stands today. His most important strike came in the 1974 World Cup final against the Netherlands. Not only did it win the World Cup for Germany, it was also his last goal for the national team. After the final whistle, Müller's shirt was secured by his marker Wim Rijsbergen, who presented it to the German Football Museum on the day it opened some 40 years later.
Müller retired from international football after the tournament. The centre forward spent a few more years at Bayern Munich and kept doing what he did best, scoring goals, eventually finishing on 365 in 427 Bundesliga appearances, 79 in the DFB Cup and 66 in European competitions. All of them for Bayern. Müller's teammate and friend of many years Franz Beckenbauer said: "Bayern Munich would not exist in its present form without Gerd." Müller remains the only player to have topped the Bundesliga scoring chart seven times. Between 1966 and 1978, he never scored fewer than 20 goals a season, bagging more than 30 on five occasions. His most successful campaign was the 1971/1972 season, when he hit the back of the net 40 times. In the same year, he scored twice against the Soviet Union in the European Championship final to guide Germany to the title. At the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, Müller, wearing the number 13 jersey, finished as the tournament's leading scorer with 10 goals.
Müller was the quintessential goalscorer, a striker with a unique ability to find the net from any angle. Whether sitting or lying, falling or flying, Müller was always on hand whenever a sniff of goal pervaded the opposition penalty area. His accuracy in front of goal earned him the martial nickname of the 'Nation's Bomber'.
When Müller passed away in August 2021 after a long battle against Alzheimer's disease, Germany's most-capped player, Lothar Matthäus, paid tribute to him, saying: "To judge Gerd Müller solely by his goals would not do him justice. He was a down-to-earth person and never someone who pushed himself to the fore. His humanity is what set him apart, along with his incredible success. His death is a huge loss for German football."
Deutsches Fußballmuseum